Hawthorne Heights

The overdose of guitarist Casey Calvert didn't diminish the big ticket alt rock of Hawthorne Heights in the least; if anything, the pummeling grind of "The Business of Paper Stars" or "Sugar In The Engine" are built with even more smoothly-distorted guitar rage than previous efforts. Their balance of '80s hair rock and '00s drama doesn't work universally (see the fittingly named "Disaster") but they shine when hooking with simple pop-punk choruses, as on "Rescue Me" and "321."

For their first two albums, Ohio pop-punkers Hawthorne Heights followed the Noble Emo
Path, deriving their high-pitched whimpers from the brand of heartache prevalent in high
school cafeterias. But then real pain hit hard: guitarist-singer Casey Calvert — who
provided the band's anguished screeches — died after an accidental prescription
overdose in 2007. On Fragile Future, Hawthorne Heights are in recovery, hangin... More >